Problem with my Moodle address

Problem with my Moodle address

by Neo K -
Number of replies: 11

Hello to everyone!

Few weeks ago I downloaded on my laptop the Moodle platform (version 3.1.1+/_31_STABLE) and also the WampServer,in order to be able to do the installation. I know nothing about programming and I am new here,so my only help was a video tutorial from Moodle channel on YouTube.  

Well,after a while I had the platform installed on my pc and everything seemed to work fine. BUT after a few days,that I wanted to embed the platform on my site I faced the following problems,which till today I haven't found the way to solve and hence I would be very pleased if someone could help me on this,please,because I devote a great amount of time trying to find out a solution rather that working on my project.

The first one has to do with my Moodle address; it appeared to me like http://localhost/(my moodle site name,let's say "annavirtualschool"). The thing is that I want to remove this "localhost" (or 127.0.0.1) from the link because I want others to have access on my site,not only me or/and the computers in my house and I don't know how to do it. Actually,I don't know what this "localhost" represents,so probably what I am trying to say here,makes no sense...I am sorry!!  I was also wandering if others (i.e. my students) need to have installed into their computers the Wamp server in order to have access in the Moodle platform and hence to our classroom? Please can you tell me how to fix this,because I don't want to end up having build a classroom that only I can enter. sad

And the second and last (I think!) problem has to do with the language of the site; I want the (moodle) site to be in my native language and not in English. I made the changes from the language settings,I tried every possible "tick/untick-the-boxes" combination but every time that my first site addresses me to Moodle site "log in" page,the language in the front page (as well as the others) is in English and I have to change it manually from the language menu box.

Any help will be really appreciated!!

Thank you all in advance.

Neo.

  

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In reply to Neo K

Re: Problem with my Moodle address

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

'localhost' means the machine you are currently using. So, if you use http://localhost/moodle in your browser, it will look for a web server (and Moodle) on the *same* machine as the browser. This is obviously no use if you want to access it over the network.

To "fix" this you need to establish the hostname or the IP address of your machine hosting Moodle. For example, if it's 192.168.0.99 (just an example!!!) edit your config file and change the setting for $CFG->wwwroot to (something like) 'http://192.168.0.99/moodle'. Other people should then be able to access it using that URL. 

Possible problems...

- Your firewall may block the connection
- If your IP is allocated by DHCP then it might change without warning
- If you have created any content using self-referring IPs then you'll need to run the Search_and_replace_tool to fix them up.

Languages...

Have you seen the chart here - Language_settings which shows how the current language is selected?

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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Problem with my Moodle address

by Neo K -

Dear Howard Miller,

Thank you for your reply!Your answer is very clear,but now another question emerged regarding this change. Will my IP be  exposed in public on my moodle address?For instance,will other people see something like,let's say "http://192.168.0.99/annavirtualschool " (a fake one!) when they try to access my site or the address will be "http://annavirtualschool .com"?

As for the languages I will check the document that you suggested. Thanks a lot again! I appreciate your response and I apologize if I became tedious with all these questions. 


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In reply to Neo K

Re: Problem with my Moodle address

by Usman Asar -
Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Neo, where is that you are actually trying to setup moodle for public access? your current machine where you initially setup moodle (or) a publicly open production server?

Howard took it as if you are going to use the same machine that you're using now, and make it public, if this is the case then attaching a domain name to it (www.yoursite.com) will require additional steps, where you will be mentioning in your domain DNS settings about your PUBLIC IP, and in your Router you will be forwarding that IP to your LOCAL IP (192.168.1.2) - your users will not be able to see the local IP in this case

If you're planning to host on an independent / separate server, then you dont have to worry much all you have to do is make changes in config.php file with new URL and make changes in terms of using REPLACE tool to accommodate to newly assigned domain name.

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In reply to Usman Asar

Re: Problem with my Moodle address

by Neo K -

Usman Asar and Howard Miller,

Thank you both for your reply! 

Please allow me to briefly describe what I try to do. I,as an individual,recently decided to create a tuitions-free online school from my home (live and online homeschooling students) and I would like to use the same computer (my laptop,not desktop) as Howard said,to be able for everyone to find my moodle site on the web but not to see my personal IP address. 

The steps that I've made so far are the following: I set up a free website ,mainly,in order to promote my project and inside this site I embeded the moodle platform,i.e. I added a button (e-class) in the menu bar that links to my moodle class and into which only students and teachers will have access.

Because I have little knowledge on technical issues,I consulted a video tutorial about moodle installation and when I downloaded the platform I also downloaded Wampserver,in order to have a server which will host the platform (at least this is what I think Wampserver does). Everything so far runs normally from my laptop and from my home when I try to sign in to the platform,but the thing was that with this "localhost" (127.0.0.1) on my http:// address I didn't know if my students will be able to enter the e-class or if they have to download to their computers the Wampserver too.

Well,I will check my internet settings and try to see what I can do,taking your words in consideration.  

Again,thank you both very much for your response,your concern and for your time! Have a nice and creative day! smile 



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In reply to Neo K

Re: Problem with my Moodle address

by Usman Asar -
Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

OK got it, you did mentioned the word "from HOME"

can be done 2 ways, but before that, you have to have a STATIC IP issued to you by your ISP (some does that for free, some charge a little extra to assign you a static IP address) - even if they do, make sure to ask them if they have necessary ports (port 80, 443, 3306 etc, allowed on static IP) as some ISP's do though give static IP but have restrictions on ports  so people dont run web servers from home.

Now just not to confuse you, a static IP remains same regardless how many times you disconnect/connect your internet, whilst a dynamic IP changes every time you shut down your router and restarted it or got disconnected from ISP for some reason.

One you are good with allocation of Static IP, here are two ways to achieve this:

1: you buy a domain name, and use domain registrar's DNS manager to point your domain to your server (using static IP given to you by your ISP)

2: you dont have to use domain name, but marely using IP would work as well, like rather than typing www.mysite.com/moodle, your students can use type address like http://172.145.13.87/moodle (where this is the static IP given to you by your ISP)

In both cases, your students doesn't have to install WAMP on their machines to use moodle.

BUT dont forget to open ports in your Router, forwarding ports 80/443 etc to your local machine (which you as well be assigning a static local IP - like 192.68.1.2)

One final thing to consider, adding cost of getting a static IP (usually is $2) and top of that keeping computer  running 24/7 would end up in spending 8-10$ additional a month, in that price you will be able to get a fairly decent web host with all that redundancy and high bandwidth availability. Moodle  itself doesn't requires users or even admins to be computer savvy, but what lies underneath does, that is why I recommended option of getting a web hosting account (can be as low as $5 a month) rather than putting  efforts on in-house setup, rest community is always here to assist.

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In reply to Usman Asar

Re: Problem with my Moodle address

by Neo K -

Oh thank you Usman,I see! So,probably web hosting is the answer...or to recourse to a friend with technical skills to adjust the internet settings at home. Another thought I made has to do with the option of MoodleCloud;it seems an easy and accurate way,but I don't know how these limitations on "users" will fit to my e-class. It allows up to 50 students and it won't be one,two or five courses that I would like to deliver,but much more (so imagine,each course x up to 5 students, I will far exceed this limitation)..Have you got any insight on this,please?  

Anyway,I think I'll take a bit more time to make my tech research. smile 

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In reply to Neo K

Re: Problem with my Moodle address

by Usman Asar -
Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Neo, you have to keep few  things in mind, first, is your concentration towards course delivery only? or towards  learning moodle as well?

If you want a customizable moodle alone with course delivery, then you'll be setting it up locally or on bought hosting, where primary goal remains course delivery, then apart from moodle Cloud, there is alternative www.gnomio.com they do offer free  moodle with plenty of themes and plug-ins already installed, but they will have their ads on your moodle  to cover their costs, and as far as i know they dont have any limitations of number of students so you can always give a try to them as well. 

Using free account in terms of either moodle cloud or gnomio will give you a pretty good idea as in how many students you are serving and what they will be doing later to start on your own.

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In reply to Usman Asar

Re: Problem with my Moodle address

by Neo K -

Yes Usman,I just want to deliver literature,history and art lessons to my students via moodle platform. I'm not interested in creating a "learning moodle" class. 

Well,as for Gnomio,it sounds good but I read the below paragraph on their site:"If you are not a donor Moodle automated backups are disabled at your site. You may (and you must) create and download a manual backup of each of your courses, but all backup files are deleted twice a day. Just for disaster recovery we run full system backups instead of internal Moodle backups.",under the Capabilities and Restrictions area,that made me wander if it's worth.because if they erase the documents that I upload,my students won't be able to have access to the them or to the course structure whenever they want: ...Unless I didn't understand what they mean. sad


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In reply to Neo K

Re: Problem with my Moodle address

by Usman Asar -
Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Neo, you're confused here, they mentioned removing BACKUPS only, and not the documents, because depending upon backups you may have set your moodle to take backups of the course every day, and keeping moodle for a year you can expect just backup files to be around 365 per course you are teaching, so to avoid drive filling up, they are doing the right thing.

what you can do i, once you have created a course fully, take manual backup and save it, else thinking that they will remove files from your course is not right. as long as you are logging ino your moodle once within 30 days, you can run your moodle for as long as they are offering free service.


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In reply to Usman Asar

Re: Problem with my Moodle address

by Neo K -

Oh right,now I understand,Usman...Thank you! smile Well,few minutes ago I contact with them,in order to make a few more questions in case I decide to create an account to their site and now I wait for their reply. I hope this will be a safe and accurate way to set up my e-class. 

Usman,once again,thank you very much for your patience,your insight and your kind response to all of my questions. You really helped me and I appreciate it! 

All of you,guys,do a great work here with your knowledge and the help that you provide and by keeping the forum open and friendly to the community.

Have a beautiful day! smile

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In reply to Neo K

Re: Problem with my Moodle address

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

If your machine's IP address is a real/routable IP address AND your corporate/school firewall allows it AND the DNS for annavirtualschool.com is configured to point to your IP address then yes. This is all highly unlikely and/or I would think you would know if this was true. 

What is more likely is that your machine will have a non-routable IP address. That is one that cannot be seen from outside even if you want it to. 

What you want to happen and how you achieve that depends on how your network is configured and how useful your network support staff are.


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